Report: Bill Clinton’s ‘closest political adviser’ voting for Romney

Douglas Band, former President Bill Clinton’s top aide, plans to vote for Mitt Romney in November, according to a report in The New Yorker.

In an extensive article on the complicated and often unpleasant relationship between Bill Clinton and President Obama, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza reports that Band intends to cast his ballot for the former Massachusetts governor this fall.

“According to two people with direct knowledge, Douglas Band has said that he will vote for Romney,” Lizza writes. “Band declined to comment.”

Lizza explains that Band believes an Obama defeat will bode well for Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects.

“For [Bill] Clinton, the politics are more complicated,” he writes.

“His associates take it as a given that he would like nothing more than to see his wife become President. Hillary Clinton will step down as Secretary of State after the campaign and begin the process of deciding whether she will run in 2016. By some measures a defeat for Obama in November would leave Hillary the undisputed leader of her party and propel her toward the Oval Office that much faster. At least one of Clinton’s closest advisers seems to be backing that strategy.”

Lizza describes Band, 39, as “Clinton’s closest political adviser.”

Bill Clinton will give a keynote address to the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night.